Smallville, the Next Generation
by Jezrianna2.0
Summary: Supergirl, as seen through the eyes of her friend Susan Ross.  Rerated for strong language, including one use of the 'f' word.
1. Exterior, Smallville, Day

Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.

The end of this chapter has been slightly rewritten to better flow into the next one.

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This is my effort to synthesize my favorite aspects of the Superman mythos. Material and inspiration are taken from Superman Adventures (the animated series): the TV show 'Smallville'; John Byrne's 'Man of Steel' miniseries from the eighties; and issue 21 of the comic book 'Superman Adventures', subtitled 'Supergirl Adventures'. I'm quite taken with the animated Supergirl, because her origin is so much more plausible than the original's. I mean, what are the odds that the only two survivors of Krypton would be first cousins? Really?

Susan Ross turned the corner of Tenth and Eisenhower and picked up her pace. The lithe eighteen year old had three letters in track, and expected to add a fourth in the spring. A brief grin crossed Susan's face. Not withstanding her family's wealth, being a four year letterman in any sport practically guaranteed a full ride scholarship for college. Scouts from every school in the midwest had come to Smallville to watch her run, and even though she was just starting her senior year in high school, Susan Ross had standing offers from both Kansas State University and the University of Kansas. It was nice, she supposed, to have a safe path into the future written out for you. Even if track didn't get her into college, the fact that her oldest brother was a member of Congress held open other avenues. Susan was sure that, if all else failed, Pete could get her into one of the service academies. Her grades wouldn't, that was for sure. Susan's lips quirked into a grin. Unlike Pete, or any of her other siblings, Susan was an indifferent student, barely eking out a C plus average. She wouldn't even have that, if it wasn't for her friend Kara's relentless tutoring. Susan's eyes flicked to the girl pedaling beside her. Kara Kent was as different from Susan as it was possible to be. The most obvious difference was their skin, Kara's white contrasting starkly with Susan's chocolate brown. Kara had long, pale platinum blonde hair (which Susan envied more than anything else) as opposed to Susan's tight black curls, and a perfect 4.33 grade point average. Of course, Susan had the advantage on her friend in some areas. She was a tireless runner, while Kara couldn't run across the street without getting winded. Less obviously, and much more painfully, Susan had two loving parents, a surfeit of aunts, uncles and cousins, and a half dozen brothers and sisters (even if they were all older than she was). Kara was an orphan, and even though her Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Martha loved her dearly, they and her cousin Clark were the only family she had left.

The former was the reason Kara was pedaling a mountain bike alongside Susan as she jogged toward the edge of town. Susan Ross ran five miles every day. During the week she ran with other members of the track team, but on Saturday mornings she and Kara would go by themselves. Not much was said during the actual run, because neither of them could spare the breath, but afterward they would repair to JD's Filling Station for breakfast and gossip. It was their weekly ritual, dating back almost to the beginning of Kara's time in Smallville.

At the south edge of town, Eisenhower Avenue's smooth concrete gave way to the dusty gravel of Lark Road, a light tan ribbon cutting through the green wheat fields of south central Kansas all the way to the horizon. Susan broke from a jog into a kind of loping run. She wasn't sprinting: she didn't have the stamina for that, but she did have a ground eating pace that would carry her miles in times that her fellow runners envied.

The beginning of Kara's time in Smallville. Susan couldn't help but smile as the thought brought back memories of a wide eyed yet painfully shy girl from Boston who stared at everyone and everything around her like she was seeing it for the first time. There had been some awkward moments of course. Kara was so different - her accent, the slang she used, her taste in music, food, and clothes - they all set her apart. But she had acclimated with a vengeance, acquiring a Midwestern accent in a couple of months, and thoroughly immersing herself in local fashions and trends. Susan had been a big help, of course. She and Kara had bonded quickly. Susan felt enough out of place in her family of overachievers that she could empathize with Kara's fish out of water plight and put up with the barrage of questions she asked. Kara had been intensely curious about even the littlest things, which led her to ask some rather strange questions from time to time. Susan had decided at the time that Kara's sometimes odd behavior was a result of her coping with her grief and healing her emotional wounds. After all, having your mother die in a house fire that you barely escape with your own life, losing all but a handful of your personal possessions and having to move halfway across the country to live with people you barely knew had to be a rough experience.

They paused when they reached Marlow Ridge. It wasn't much of a ridge, Susan knew, really just a series of low, sandy hills a couple of miles south of town. Kara had said once that it had been dropped by a melting glacier, tens of thousands of years ago. She had called it an esker, or something like that. Susan had to admit she didn't really care. All she knew was that it was the highest point in the area, and that the crest of it was her turn-around point. She paused briefly, sipping water from the bottle Kara offered her and looking around. Green fields rippled to the horizon in all directions. Smallville shimmered in the morning heat. A mile long freight train was tearing alone the Union Pacific right-of-way, approaching town from the west. To the south...to the south was a strange sight. Something had just crested Seven Mile Hill and was barreling along Lark Road at high speed.

"Look at that idiot," Susan snorted. "He's going to get himself killed." Kara was staring at it, saying nothing. Susan regarded the object. She had assumed it was a car, but it was too big for that. It didn't seem to be a semi either, because no one would ever drive a semi that fast on a gravel road. It had already reached the stream at the bottom of Seven Mile Hill, a distance of almost a mile.

"What semi can do a hundred and fifty on gravel?" she wondered aloud.

"That's no semi," Kara said. She turned to Susan. "Get off the road, now!" she said, and guided her bike onto Ridge Road, Susan following at a run. Ridge Road was even less of a road than Marlow Ridge was a ridge. It was little more than a dirt track, used mainly by off-roaders, that more or less followed the crest of the ridge. It went no where, petering out after a few miles, with nothing to see along it but some long abandoned farmsteads. When they had gone perhaps two hundred yards Susan glanced toward the road, and had to stifle a scream. The machine was much closer, and had turned off the road. It was tearing across a wheat field...straight at them.

"Back to the road!" Kara commanded her, and Susan obeyed almost instinctively, even as Kara kept heading away from it. Sprinting now, Susan let out a moan of despair when the machine turned to head for her. Something caught her foot. She stumbled and fell. Even as she picked herself up she knew it was too late. The machine was almost on top of her, and the only thing left to do was wait for death.

Then, somehow, Kara was there, standing between Susan and the machine, her arms and body braced for impact, as if her fragile flesh could stop the onrushing leviathan. Susan felt a pang of affection for her friend. The futile gesture was so like Kara... Unable to look, she closed her eyes. There was a thunderous concussion. Susan felt like something had slammed into her. The thunder was followed by the shrieks and groans of tearing, bending metal. Certain she was dead, but wanting to be sure, Susan opened her eyes. Then opened them fully to stare wide eyed at the sight before her. Kara was still standing where she had been, still in her braced position, leaning into the crumpled front of the machine. Her head was tilted back to watch the back end of the machine as it reared up to tower over her. It halted just short of vertical, paused, then began to fall back, slamming into the ground with a deafening clatter. Only then did Kara's body relax.

"How did you do that?' Susan whispered. Kara turned, the look of satisfaction on her face instantly changing to one of concern. "Are you all right?" she demanded as she knelt beside Susan. Susan just stared back at her. Kara's eyes roamed across Susan's body, then returned to look into Susan's own. "No broken bones or internal injuries," Kara said cheerfully, "Just a few cuts and scrapes. C'mon, I'll help you up." She lifted Susan to her feet with no apparent effort. Part of Susan's mind wondered at the strangeness of that fact, given that Kara had trouble with a single forty pound bag of water softener salt, while another part chided her for finding that odd, in the face of what had just happened. She looked at Kara, then at the machine, then back at Kara. "How did you DO that?" she demanded, gesturing at the ruined machine. Kara gave Susan a very peculiar look. Susan's eyes widened suddenly, as she noticed both the tattered state of Kara's shirt, and what she was wearing under it.

Susan Ross fainted dead away.


	2. Interior, Kent Home, Day

**Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.**

Susan Ross' eyes flickered open. The stink of ammonia filled her nose. A familiar face loomed above her. "Susan? Can you hear me?" Martha Kent asked. The elderly farm wife waited, her face etched with concern, for Susan to answer. For her part, Susan was trying to collect her thoughts. She was in the living room of the Kent's farmhouse, lying on the couch. The smell of ammonia was coming from the small bottle in Martha's hand. 'Smelling salts,' Susan nodded to herself. More than one member of Smallville High's track team had had to be revived by the acrid compound, including Susan herself. She stretched, wincing as various aches and pains announced themselves.

"I hear you, Mrs. Kent," she said aloud. Mrs. Kent relaxed noticeably. "But, uh, how did I get here?" Susan's question was sincere, and her brow furrowed as she pondered the matter. She replayed the morning's events in her mind. She remembered the strange truck coming up Lark Road. She remembered turning onto Ridge Road to get out of its way. After that, things got...fuzzy. Or maybe jumbled. She could recall images, just flashes really, but couldn't put them in any meaningful order. The was a memory of falling, of being about to be devoured by a monster, and of Kara...

Susan shook her head. "Is Kara all right?" she demanded. Mrs. Kent smiled. "Kara's fine, dear. She's the one who brought you here." That didn't make much sense to Susan. There's no way Kara could have gotten her from Marlow Ridge to the Kent farm by herself, not on a mountain bike. And if Kara had flagged down a passing car, Susan would have awoken in the Smallville Medical Center, instead of in a farmhouse on the opposite side of town. More images popped into Susan's head: Kara confronting the beast, then turning to Susan, her shirt hanging in shreds that revealed...

Susan shook her head again. "That truck must have knocked me silly," she mused wryly. She looked at Martha. "I've had the strangest dream," she confided.

"That was no truck," a new, yet familiar voice chipped in.

"Pete!" Susan exclaimed, as her oldest brother knelt by the couch and enfolded her in his arms. He was home visiting for a week, she remembered, and when Susan had left her house in the morning, Pete had followed her out the door, on his way to have breakfast with his old classmate, Clark Kent, at the Kent's farm north of town. 'Is that why Kara brought me here?' Susan wondered, 'Because she knew Pete was here?' "How're you doing Kiddo?" he asked. She knew he wasn't too worried about her, otherwise he wouldn't have used the nickname he knew she hated.

"Don't call me 'Kiddo'," she said, glowering at him. Then Susan grinned. "I'm ok, I just - What do you mean it wasn't a truck!" she said, her tone of voice switching from reassuring to demanding in mid sentence. Pete sat back on his heels, his expression worried. "I mean it wasn't a truck," he said quietly.

"Then what was it?" Susan asked, a little annoyed that her brother wasn't being more forthcoming.

"It was a forty ton, turbine powered, jet propelled, armored, unmanned hovercraft," Pete explained, his eyes never leaving Susan's, "and from what Kara told us it was after you specifically."

"But why?" Susan wondered.

"We don't know," Pete said simply. "Some of C - Kara's friends are looking into it, but they've barely gotten started. It may take a while for them to find anything." He sighed. "If Kara hadn't been with you..." Susan stared at her brother. The look on her face must have said, 'What the Hell did Kara have to do with anything?' because Pete began to speak again. "That dream you mentioned to Martha?" Susan nodded. "Was it about Kara jumping in front of the machine and stopping it cold with her bare hands?"

"How did you know?"

"Because it wasn't a dream," Pete replied. He gestured at someone standing outside Susan's field of vision. Kara stepped into view, her expression a mix of relief, concern, and worry - mostly for Susan, but a little for herself. And with good reason, Susan thought numbly. Kara was dressed up like Supergirl, which was ridiculous. I mean, seriously. Kara Kent, the 110 pound weakling, really a girl able to move mountains? It was so silly that Susan almost laughed. She shook her head. "Good joke," she opined, "but there's no way..."

Kara closed her eyes, and an almost prayerful expression crossed her face. When she opened her eyes again, she looked straight at Susan. And her eyes began to glow. Susan's eyes flew wide open. She could _feel_ the heat radiating from Kara's eyes. Susan drew back in shock and horror.

"No fuckin' way," she stammered. "You can't be...you aren't...you ARE!" Susan slumped back on her pillow, still staring at Kara. "You're Supergirl. You're really Supergirl."

Kara shook her head slightly. "No," she clarified. "I'm really Kara In-ze, of the planet Argo." Kara smiled sadly. "You can call me Kara Kent, though. As for Supergirl," she went on, gesturing at the big red 'S' on her chest, "She's something I do in my spare time."

Susan's mind roiled, emotions and thoughts turning over faster than she could sort them out. "That thing..." she said quietly. She began to tremble.

Kara folded her arms across her chest. "Green Lantern took it up to the Watchtower so Batman and the Atom can examine it," she said. "If anyone can find out who sent it after you, they can," she added, reassuringly. "And, I ..." Kara paused. Susan's shaking had intensified. Her head was bent back, and her arms were bent up. "Susan? Pete?"

Peter Ross swore. "Damn, she's having a seizure!" Kara looked at him blankly. "She's epileptic," he explained. "She must not have taken her medication, stupid kid."

"What do we do?"

"Nothing," Pete said calmly. "We'll let the seizure run its course, and she should be fine. You might want to call my folks though, and tell them to bring her pills."

* * *

Susan looked at her brother. "How bad was it?"

Pete shrugged. "Three minutes, forty-two seconds," he said.

Susan said nothing, just stared at the ceiling.

"What's your full name?" Pete asked.

"Susan Elizabeth Ross," Susan replied.

"What's your address?"

"Eleven twenty-three Roosevelt Avenue."

"I guess you're completely over it then," Pete said, smiling with relief. "Mom and Dad are on their way, with your pills, which, Mom told me to remind you, you are supposed to take EVERY day, young lady!" He said the last sternly, wagging his finger at her, and Susan laughed. Her mother would no doubt use those exact same words, and nearly the same tone of voice, when she chewed Susan out (after she got the fretting out of her system). Susan sighed. "I'm not having a very good day, Pete," she said quietly.

Pete smiled gently, laying a hand on his sister's forehead. "Look on the bright side. At least you aren't dead."

"That is something," Susan conceded. She fixed her brother with a questioning gaze. "Did I imagine it, or is Kara really Supergirl?" Before Pete could answer, Kara returned, clad in sneakers, blue jeans, and a white baby-doll shirt, her glasses perched on her nose.

"Yes, I really am Supergirl...Betsy," Kara said, finishing with a wicked grin.

Susan sighed again. Why her parents had given her the name Elizabeth was a mystery, and Susan had taken pains over the years to never tell people what the initial 'E' in her name stood for. Now the secret was out. She glared at Kara.

"You even think about calling me 'Betsy Ross', or asking me to sew a flag, and I'll snap your head off and hand it to you in a bucket." Kara laughed.

"Well, she's back to normal," she observed, and Pete chuckled. Kara gave Susan a serious look. "Why didn't you ever tell me you had epilepsy?"

"Why didn't you ever tell me you were Supergirl?" Susan shot back.

Kara gave an embarrassed shrug. "How do you bring up the fact that you aren't human in casual conversation?"

Susan regarded her friend thoughtfully. Friend? Was Kara still a friend? Part of Susan was furious at Kara for not sharing her secret, but then, it wasn't as if Susan had shared all of her own secrets. "So all those stories about your family and growing up in Boston were...lies?"

Kara looked away. "The stories were true," she said. "I just changed the names and locations."

"Well, I can understand that, I guess," Susan said, "but when we have time, I want to hear the REAL story of your life."

Kara stared at her for a moment, then smiled. "I can do better than that," she said, "I can show you."

Susan gave her a questioning look, and Kara pulled out her cell phone. At least, Susan would say later, it looked like a cell phone. Even functioned as one. But...

"Watchtower, this is Supergirl."

"Reading you five by five, Supergirl, Captain Atom here."

"Have those reinforcements I asked for left yet?"

"Negative, ETD...seventeen minutes."

"Tell them I need a vacuum rated environment suit." Kara paused and looked thoughtfully at Susan. "Medium size," she added.

"Roger that," Captain Atom's voice said, "One medium sized, vacuum rated suit, coming up."

Susan's expression of surprise quickly changed to curiosity. "What do I need a spacesuit for?"

Kara gave her a nonchalant look. "Well, I suppose it's possible that you DON'T want to go to the Fortress of Solitude, but if you do..."

Susan sat up. "The Fortress of Solitude! Like you have to even ask?" She paused, then frowned. "But won't Superman object?" she asked. Clark Kent, her brother's lifelong friend and Kara's make-believe cousin, appeared in the living room door and leaned against the jamb. He smiled knowingly at Susan, then took off his glasses, looked at Pete, then Kara, back at Susan and said, "No, I won't object."

Susan fainted again.


	3. Interior, Fortress of Solitude, Day

Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.

Susan pulled off her helmet and looked around. The Fortress of Solitude! In a day filled with wonders, this was a big one. Not quite at the top, of course. Learning Kara's, and especially Clark's, secrets had that honor. Meeting Kara's 'reinforcements' - Black Canary, Fire, and Steel - had been anticlimactic in comparison. Even the flight from Smallville to Antarctica, stunning as it was, took a secondary place.

As Kara helped her out of the environment suit Susan remarked, "You know, I still can't believe I never figured out Clark's secret, or yours for that matter. I mean, I've know the guy my whole life. I used to call him 'uncle' for Heaven's sake."

Kara just grinned. "Psychology, Susan. Most people, be they human or argoan, never look beyond the surface, and to a great extent, they see what they _expect _to see."

"What do you mean?" Susan asked.

Kara stepped back and struck a pose, her feet wide apart, her hands in fists on her hips. "What do you see?"

"Supergirl," Susan answered.

"And how does she appear to you?"

Susan frowned thoughtfully. Kara's uniform had always seemed a bit skimpy to Susan, especially the micro-miniskirt, but it did look good on her. "Proud, confident," she offered, and Kara grinned again. "Cocky as hell, too," Susan added sharply. Kara just grinned wider. She held up a finger in a 'wait' gesture, then spun into a blur. When she stopped she was wearing jeans, a tee shirt and sneakers. Her hair was in its usual ponytail, and she was wearing her glasses again.

"And now?" Kara prompted. She was slouching a bit and biting her lower lip the way she always did when she was nervous. Susan shook her head. "Unbelievable," she muttered. "Even knowing, I have trouble imagining you as Supergirl."

Kara beamed smugly, "Which is exactly how it's supposed to be."

Susan glared at her and Kara relented. "C'mon," she gestured, "The library is this way."

The library was not that impressive. It was smallish chamber hewn, like the rest of the Fortress, out of solid rock. The floor had been leveled and polished, but the walls and ceiling were rough, bare rock that glistened with condensation. Two simple pillars were the only furnishings. Above each floated a silvery sphere about the size of a volleyball.

"Brainiac?" Susan whispered.

"Yep," Kara confirmed.

"Which is which?" Kara pointed to symbols carved into the front of each pillar. Kryptonian writing, Susan guessed. Kara gestured to the right and left globes in turn. "Krypton. Argo." She walked to the Argo globe, beckoning Susan to follow.

"All we have to do is touch it," she explained. Susan moved her hand out, a little hesitantly. Her fingers brushed the surface. It was smooth and cool to the touch. Kara laid her hand beside Susan's. The air seemed to crackle with static electricity. There was a flash, and Susan found herself standing in...something. A chamber of some kind. It seemed to be a projection, because she could still see the walls of the library chamber, if only dimly. A smooth baritone voice echoed in her head.

"Greetings Kara In-Ze. Greetings Susan Ross. I am Brainiac. How may I serve you?"

"It speaks English?" Susan gasped. Kara shook her head.

"Not exactly. Well, sort of. It's not actually talking. I mean, it isn't generating sound like CD player does. It's directly stimulating the areas of our brains that process speech and vision in such a way that we see and hear what its trying to tell us. As for the English, well," Kara shrugged helplessly. "Ah, screw it. I never really understood how these worked," she confessed. "I just know how to use them."

"Can't he tell us?" Susan asked, nodding at the globe.

Kara gave her a pained look. "I 'm sure it could," she allowed reluctantly, "but do you really want to sit through a who-knows-how-many hours long lecture on brain chemistry, quantum mechanics, remote matter manipulation, and a half dozen other highly technical subjects?"

Susan grimaced and shook her head. "Since you put it that way..."

Kara returned her attention to Brainiac. "Give us a background brief on the planet Argo," she commanded.

A three dimensional diagram of a star system appeared in the air in front of them. The voice spoke again. "Argo was the third planet from the main sequence red giant commonly known as Rao." Susan nudged Kara.

"I thought Rao was the name of your god," she whispered.

"It is," Kara confirmed. "The earliest Raoists were sun worshippers."

"Since the destruction of Krypton," Brainiac went on, as the diagram changed, "Argo's orbit has shifted. It has moved away from Rao, out of the life zone, and passed beyond the orbit of Apynn. I estimate there is a ninety-nine point six percent probability that Argo will crash into Rao's sixth planet, the gas giant Zinn-ol, in seven thousand eight hundred and fifty-two years."

"Show," Kara said hesitantly, "Show the Great Disaster, from my point of view."

The scene shifted, and Susan found herself looking at a room. It was a lab, or a workshop, or something. At least, it didn't look like a home. A younger version of Kara was playing with some of the equipment in the room, while an older woman Susan recognized as Kara's mother led a man and a boy around the room.

"That's my uncle Del, and my cousin Dar," Kara said quietly. The woman was speaking, in Kryptonian apparently. Whatever it was, Susan couldn't understand a word of it.

"What's she saying?"

"Translate into English, Brainiac," Kara commanded. An strange, atonal chime sounded, and the young Kara turned an ran to a screen mounted on a nearby wall. Symbols like the ones on the pillars were visible on it. Over top of them, inserted by Brainiac, were English words that read, 'Incoming transmission. Point of origin: Krypton. Caller: Pala Nan-ad. Kara choked.

"This is going to be hard for me to watch," she cautioned. "Don't worry if I break down."

The young Kara touched controls, and the screen lit with the image of an equally young girl with dark hair.

"Pala!" Susan heard. "I haven't heard from you in days!"

"Hello, Kara," the dark haired girl answered. "Is it safe to talk?"

"Of course, Pala, what's the matter? You're calling so late over there."

Pala looked anxious. "Last night my parents had some of the Council over, and I heard them arguing about some rumor that something terrible is going to happen to Krypton."

"Did you ask your parents about it?" Kara asked. Pala nodded.

"They said everything was fine, that Brainiac said Krypton was safe. I trust Brainiac, but some of the Council members sounded so worried... Kara, I just can't stop thinking something horrible might happen!"

"I'm sure everything's fine," Kara said dismissively. "You know how grownups love to worry."

Pala seemed to relax. "I guess you're right."

"Of course I'm right," Kara proclaimed. "If they're not worrying, they're trying to make us worry." Kara's voice went mockingly serious. "Young lady," she said pompously, "You come straight home, or the General will get you!"

Pala laughed. "Right! Or, 'You better behave! Brainiac is watching you!'" The girls started giggling. Susan heard a soft sound beside her. A glance revealed a stricken looking Kara, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

"Hey, what's -" Susan turned again at the sound of Pala's voice. The image on the screen was breaking up.

"Pala!" Kara exclaimed.

"K-kara? Everything's sh-shaking. I can hear people screaming outsi-skssszz." The room Pala was in was trembling, like there was an earthquake. As the screen went dark Susan heard one last, plaintive cry from Pala. "Mother? Father?"

The cold words 'Transmission Interrupted' appeared on the screen. Kara cried out, "Pala!" She turned and ran to her mother. "Mother, something's happening on Krypton!"

Kara's mother and uncle fiddled with some of the room's equipment.

"I can't get through," Kara's uncle said. "Their satellite uplink isn't responding."

"Ours is," Kara's mother announced. "I'm getting visuals. They'll tell us if anything is happening..." A new image appeared on the screen. "On Krypton," Kara's mother faltered. The screen showed a view of a planet from space, its surface fractured, with wisps of fire emerging from the cracks. Susan gulped. Those 'wisps', she realized, must have been hundreds of miles high, if she could see them at this scale. Krypton's surface roiled like boiling water and then...

The view shifted to a stylized view from space. Rao gleamed red in the distance. Krypton and Argo, and their relative positions, were shown by icons.

"Analysis of archival records suggests that Krypton was destroyed by an ancient doomsday weapon, left over from the Civil Wars. In any case, Krypton exploded with enough force to hurl its mass away at greater than escape velocity." Almost as an afterthought Brainiac added. "Fifty-seven billion Kryptonians died instantly."

The icon representing Krypton seemed to swell. A green sphere grew out from it, followed by a slower moving blue one. "High levels of electromagnetic radiation, including x and gamma rays, spread out in all directions at the speed of light, followed by slower moving, but still energetic neutrons." Brainiac's voice was as dispassionate as if it was reading from the dictionary. "Two minutes, eleven seconds after Krypton exploded, the wave front reached Argo." The view zoomed in on a blue white globe that reminded Susan of Earth. There was a flash of green. Argo's atmosphere seethed.

"Argo's ozone layer was burned away," Brainiac intoned. "Everyone on the day side received a fatal dose of radiation. Those that didn't perish immediately were finished off when the neutron flux arrived minutes later." The view swung around to the shadowed side.

"Those sheltered by Argo's mass had only a temporary respite. Most of Argo's orbital facilities were destroyed or heavily damaged, along with most of its ships. And, three hours after the initial effects, the first debris arrived."

Susan watched as small rocks, highlighted by streaks, hurtled past Argo or slammed into it with the force of hydrogen bombs. "Any chance of long term survival ended on the third day, when a chunk of debris that, based on impact effects and velocity, was massive enough to be, if spherical, six point two four U.S. statute miles in diameter, struck the planet."

Susan watched in awe and horror as the scene of worldwide devastation unfolded. "It's just like the opening of that Bruce Willis movie, 'Armageddon'," she whispered.

"That's exactly what it was," Kara sobbed. "The end of everything." She quit fighting the tears and began to shake with grief. Her heart torn, Susan moved to comfort her friend, embracing Kara gently. Kara didn't respond.

"I can't even hug you!" she wailed.

Susan understood. One uncontrolled twitch of those slender arms would crush her with less effort than it would take Susan to kill a fly. She shuddered at the though, but didn't pull away, just stood there while Kara's grief ran its course. Eventually the weeping subsided. Kara pulled away, turned, blew her nose and wiped her eyes. She took a deep breath, then looked at Susan. She smiled. It was a little forced, but not too much.

"Now that you've seen how my world ended," she said, "would you like to see how it began?"


	4. Interior, A Kitchen, Night

Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.

__

_Deadeyeus2: Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it._

_Triaxx2: What can I say:) _

_It should be noted that much of the material in this, and the preceding chapter, is adapted from or inspired by the story 'Last Daughter of Argo', written by Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer, and published in issue 21 of Superman Adventures._

It was decidedly odd, Susan thought, to be in the Fortress of Solitude, and be sitting in a room filled with mundane appliances. Her eyes scanned the chamber. Stove, sink, microwave, refrigerator. It could have been anyone's kitchen. 'Maybe it's just that its Superman's kitchen,' she mused, taking a sip from her glass of orange juice. Kara had said she needed time to compose herself after watching, again, the destruction of her homeworld, and Susan couldn't blame her.

"I always thought Superman had a perfect life," Susan said slowly. "Having all those powers, being famous. I never really thought about the 'Last Son of Krypton' thing, and what it meant."

Kara looked up and smiled sadly. "Don't feel bad. Clark hasn't thought about it much either." Susan gave Kara a perplexed look, and Kara shrugged. "He was, for all practical purposes, born here. He doesn't remember Krypton, so to him, the whole thing is just an abstract historical event. He didn't experience it, so in a sense it isn't real to him."

Susan shuddered. Kara had sketched in the aftermath of the explosion of Krypton and its effect on Argo. Four years, she had spent, huddled in the basement of her parents' house, clinging to life. She had told of scavenging supplies, of fighting off would be looters who were just as desperate as they were or bartering with them if they were willing to trade, all the while a winter that would never end descended on her ruined planet.

"Trade? Trade what?" Susan had been surprised enough at that to interrupt.

"Food, equipment, medical supplies or care. My mom was a doctor, remember."

Susan had forgotten that. Part of Kara Kent's 'cover story' was that her late mother had run a small free clinic in Boston.

"And other stuff," Kara concluded, a bit uncomfortably.

Susan started to ask what the 'other stuff' was, but the look on Kara's face stopped her. In a flash of insight she realized that Kara would have had one commodity to offer in trade just by virtue of being female, if Kryptonian men were anything like human men. Susan gulped. 'In a situation like that, I guess you do what you have to,' she allowed, and decided not to press he issue.

She told of the other groups of survivors, scattered across Argo and in outposts elsewhere in the system, which her mother had found and contacted. Of their efforts to devise a way out of their plight, and the utter despair that came with the realization that there _wasn't _a way out. Of listening, helpless, while other groups ran out of food and perished, either deliberately, or by resorting to cannibalism.

"Or worse," Kara had added darkly.

"What could be worse than cannibalism?" Susan had wondered in a sick voice.

"What do you think could be worse than eating someone _else_?" Kara had responded.

Susan was perfectly willing to admit that she wasn't the most imaginative person to ever come down the pike. On her own she probably wouldn't have thought about what might be worse, but Kara's words were enough to goad her mind into conjuring up an image. She'd thought she'd felt nauseated before, but it was nothing compared to the feeling that sight induced.

Susan shuddered again. 'I wish I hadn't thought of it again, let alone the first time.' She looked at her glass of juice. Her appetite, even her thirst, was gone. She set the glass down and pushed it away.

Most heart wrenching of all was the tale Kara told of the day when her mother announced that their own end was at hand.

"With no resources to build a ship, and no answer to our distress signal, all we've done is survive day-to-day. Now even that is at an end. Our power reserves are almost gone, and Argo's atmosphere is beginning to freeze, leaving us only one option for survival," Kara related her mother as saying, then telling her reaction to that 'one option'.

"I've converted these medical chambers for cold sleep. The lab's reserve power will be channeled into them, and the distress beacon. Hopefully someone, someday, will hear it, and help will arrive."

Kara had cringed at the words 'cold sleep'. She had learned to hate the relentless, inescapable cold. Even the lab was cold, barely above freezing. Only one room, the sleeping chamber, was heated anymore.

"We have no other choice," her uncle Del had assured his son when Dar had voiced the same reservations Kara was feeling. "At least it's a chance..."

Susan blinked. Her eyes stung as she remembered the final conversation Kara had had with her mother.

"Oh, mother! I'm so afraid!"

"Shhh. There's nothing to be frightened of Kara. Just close your eyes, and the next thing you know, we'll all be together again, safe, happy, and warm," her mother had crooned softly as she put her daughter into one of the chambers.

"But what if we never wake up?" Kara had asked, her voice shaking with terror. "What if we sleep forever? Forever and ever, in the cold?"

Her mother had answered with what Kara knew even then was a lie, but she'd clung to it with the same desperation as a shipwreck survivor who couldn't swim would cling to a tiny piece of debris in the middle of a trackless ocean.

"As my heart beats, I promise you, my most beloved - you will awaken, and you will once again see the sun shining high above you in the heavens. I promise. Now sleep, my baby. Sleep in peace, knowing that you are loved."

Susan swallowed. She took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully. Thank God for Clark Kent, who'd told his side of the story of Kara's rescue before she and Susan left for the Fortress. He had borrowed a starship from somebody, just who Susan couldn't guess, and gone to the Rao system. It hadn't been a rescue mission. He was just going for the sake of seeing it with his own eyes, to make a connection with it. Bare chance, and an inexplicable impulse, had led him to scan for signals thirty odd years after the fact. The odds of anyone having survived that long had been infinitesimal. But he'd run the scan anyway, and found a signal. The beacon had led him to the frozen wasteland Argo had become, down to the In-ze home and into the lab beneath it. There he had found a recording Kara's mother had made.

He hadn't understood it at first. Thanks to the foresight of his father, Clark had had the means to learn his birth world's language. He spoke and read Kryptonian fluently. But Kara's mother had spoken the Argoan dialect of Kryptonian, which was sufficiently different that Clark had to replay the message five times before he was sure he understood it perfectly. To say that he was thrilled at the prospect of survivors would have been putting it mildly. He'd raced to the room that held the cold sleep chambers, only to have his high spirits crushed. Three of the chambers were so obviously damaged, by ice that had fallen from the ceiling, that he wasn't surprised to find the occupant was a freeze dried corpse. A man, a boy, and a woman.

He almost hadn't bothered to look at the fourth chamber, in fact had started to turn away, when, out of the corner of his eye, he'd noticed a dim refection in an ice covered wall. A single, tiny light. The only light, it turned out, that showed the fourth machine was still working.

"I don't put much stock in miracles, but I like to think that last bit was His doing" Kara had said as she pulled out the pendant she wore around her neck. Susan had seen the seven pointed star before, and always assumed it was just a bauble. Instead, it was the symbol of Rao, and Kara had led Susan, who had believed Kara was an atheist or something, since she showed no more than a polite interest in Christianity, to the shrine she had built in the attic of the Kent house. It wasn't very big, just a small cabinet with some candles and an incense burner, but Susan had found it both deeply moving and strangely comforting. Susan was a Baptist. She wasn't as demonstrative as some, but she took her faith seriously, and the discovery that that was something that she and Kara had in common...reassured her, somehow.

Susan looked across the table. Kara was gazing off into nothingness. 'Probably putting her thoughts in order for the next session with Brainiac,' she mused. 'Hopefully that one won't be so rough for her.' She wondered if Brainiac could explain Raoism for her while they were here. Then she shook her head. 'No, I want to hear that from Kara,' she decided. It would be interesting to compare Raoism with Christianity. Whatever the differences might be, Susan was sure the two religions would have far more in common than she expected.

Susan cleared her throat. Kara blinked and looked up. "Ready for another go?" Susan asked, gesturing in what she hoped was the general direction of the library. Kara grinned.

"Sure. It may be a little dry, though," she cautioned. "I mean, I know history isn't your favorite subject, and Brainiac isn't exactly a riveting speaker."

"I noticed that," Susan replied dryly. "I'm sure the material will more than make up for a lousy lecturer."


	5. Interior, Brainiac Chamber, Night

Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.

"Summarize the history of the Argo Colony," Kara ordered Brainiac, and Susan blinked.

"Not 'the history of Krypton'?" she asked curiously.

Kara gave Susan a tolerant look. "I'm not from Krypton, Susan," Kara explained patiently. "I'm from Argo. I'm Argoan, not Kryptonian." There was a hint of prickliness in Kara's voice, giving Susan the impression that this was a sensitive subject with her. Still, Susan reflected, she'd never learn if she didn't ask.

"I'm don't understand the difference. Aren't you and Clark the same species?"

Kara took a breath, started to speak, stopped and shook her head. "Let's let Brainiac give its summary, and then I'll answer whatever questions you might have."

"Fair enough," Susan allowed, and turned her attention to the silvery Brainiac sphere.

"On with the show Brainiac," Kara prodded lightly.

The globe of Argo appeared in the air before them, turning slowly.

"Argo was know to Kryptonians since prehistoric times," Brainiac recited. "but was not until the year three thousand two hundred and.."

Kara cut Brainiac off. "Use the Argoan calendar," she said peremptorily.

"...until the year minus four hundred thirteen," Brainiac corrected smoothly, "that the Kandorian scientist Hol-eb turned a telescope upon Argo and saw a disk, suggesting to him that Argo was another world. Over the course of the next four centuries, astronomers would learn that Argo had an atmosphere capable of supporting Kryptonians, as well as oceans and indigenous life."

The scene changed, to a rocket standing on a launch pad. Susan was stunned by the resemblance it bore to a Saturn V. Fire erupted from the rocket's base, and it rose into a clear blue sky.

"In the year zero, Kryptonians from Kandor traveled to Argo for the first time. In the year ninety-seven, a permanent Kandorian base was established. Fifty-nine years later, Kandor, and the other governments of Krypton, recognized the Argo Colony as an independent state, and granted it a seat in the Kryptonian Assembly."

Susan watched as time blurred. Ships of ever increasing size and complexity flew between Krypton and Argo. Enormous space stations blossomed in the skies, and cities spread across Argo's surface.

"In the year five forty seven OTAC..." Susan interrupted.

"Does 'OTAC' mean 'of the Argo Colony'?" she asked.

"Yes," Brainiac confirmed.

"I thought so. You can leave that bit out from now on."

"Very well. In the year five forty seven, the Kryptonian Civil Wars began." A city spread out before them, its towers gleaming in the sunlight. Susan gasped as an artificial sun blazed to life above it.

"The first war began with a surprise attack on Kandor's principal city by terrorists affiliated with the Science Council, a shadowy organization dedicated to the establishment of a global intellocracy. That was not known at the time, however, and Kandor responded by declaring war on it's main rival, the nation of Herantala." The scene changed again, as Brainiac showed a view of Krypton, highlighting the countries in question. More images flowed past, of armies on the march, skies filled with aircraft, burning cities and countless dead.

"Millions perished as the conflict spread to every corner of Krypton. Herantala managed to patch together an alliance against Kandor, and several years later had its enemy on the brink of defeat. It was then that Kandor did as the Science Council hoped it would. Rather than submit, Kandor resolved to take its foes with it into the night." A scene of missiles rising above green fields was followed by a global view, where pinpricks of nuclear fire circled Krypton like beads on a string.

"In the course of the war, Argo was isolated from Krypton as the space fleets of the various Kryptonian states were destroyed, along with the means to replenish them. Lacking an industrial base of its own, Argo fell backward, technologically, as its mother world entered what would come to be known as the Great Darkness. A thousand years would pass before Argo reacquired the means to travel between worlds, and a thousand more before Krypton, now dominated by the Science Council's tyranny, deigned to allow contact with a people they considered genetic inferiors."

Susan's jaw was sagging. What little Superman had said publicly about his birth world had made it sound like a paradise, so what the hell was this? It sounded like Brainiac was reciting Argoan propaganda, and one look at the grim expression on Kara's face suggested that was the case.

"Despite their xenophobia, the Science Council permitted trade, but not breeding, between Kryptonians and Argoans. This attitude of superiority led, eventually, to the dictatorship of General Zod, who, in the year thirty-nine fifty-six, overthrew the pacifistic Argoan government." An image of a fierce looking man appeared. "Zod," Brainiac went on, "an Argoan nationalist, immediately began a build up of Argo's military, in preparation for a 'War of Liberation' against the Science Council. When the Council, in 3965, banished an Argoan citizen to the Phantom Zone for mating with a Kryptonian, Zod declared war. The conflict quickly escalated, to the point where it became apparent that the only possible outcome was mutual annihilation. Realizing this, Zod's own staff overthrew him in turn, and negotiated a cease-fire with Krypton, the terms of which included turning Zod over to the Science Council. Zod, responsible for the deaths of billions, was sentenced to eternity in the Phantom Zone, where he remains, the only person ever so punished."

Susan glanced at Kara, and was stunned to see her scowling in disapproval.

Brainiac went on. "In the years after the war the Science Council, which had been forced to relax it's grip on the Kryptonian populace in order to inspire them to resist Zod, was overthrown as well, and replaced by a popular government."

Kara turned to Susan. "So," she almost snarled, "In the end, Zod got what he wanted." Seeing the shocked look on Susan's face Kara clarified. "Oh, his methods may have been wrong," she allowed, "but his goal was noble."

"Then why wasn't he..?"

"...released from the Phantom Zone?" Kara smiled bitterly. "He CAN'T be. When you send someone into the Zone, you have to fit them with a tracking beacon, so you can find them again. Zod..."

"...was sent in without one, right?" Susan finished. Kara nodded. The horror Susan felt was multifaceted. She had gleaned, from background images, that Zod had butchered millions of his own people, as well as triggering a war that claimed billions more, and here Kara was, insinuating that Zod had gotten a raw deal!

Susan's head spun. This was a side of Kara she had never seen. The notion that Kara had brought emotional baggage about Argo's relationship with its parent world with her was... well, shocking, even though it shouldn't have been. A thought occurred to her.

"So the fact that Clark is Kryptonian..."

Kara smiled. "I don't hate him, Susan. I owe him my life, after all. He was just a baby when his father sent him here. He isn't responsible for what happened in the past." Kara's expression became pained. "Besides, Argo and Krypton are gone. There's no point in perpetuating old grudges anymore. Clark and I are the last of our people. When we die, two great civilizations will become extinct." Tears glistened in Kara's eyes.

"No grudge is worth hurrying that along," she smiled sadly.

Susan stared at Kara, her expression thoughtful.

"What year were you born in?" she asked, after a long silence.

"Forty-two sixty-one," Kara provided.

"Are Argoan years longer or shorter..."

"Longer," Kara interrupted. "One point three nine times as long."

"So," Susan struggled to do the math in her head, "Krypton had manned space flight..."

"Six thousand of your years ago."

A question popped into Susan's head. She didn't want to ask it, more because it would put Kara between a rock and a hard place than because she was afraid of the answer, but she had to know.

"Just...how primitive...are we?"

Kara looked away uncomfortably. "Remember that show on the Discovery Channel, about that tribe in New Guinea?"

Susan did remember. The tribe in question had lived in a remote, isolated valley. They had never seen white men, or modern technology. They were a pure stone age people, and had been stunned by the simplest things, like metal tools, even cloth.

"That bad, huh?"

Kara grimaced. "I'm afraid so," she apologized. "In comparison, anyway. And only technologically."

Susan laid a hand on Kara's shoulder. "Don't apologize. It's like I say about track. No matter how good you think you are, there's always someone better."

Kara relaxed visibly, and Susan made a request.

"Now, I want to know what it was like, waking up here. From your point of view."


	6. Flashback, Hospital Room, Day

Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.

"The first thing I remember," Kara said softly, her eyes going distant, "was hearing voices. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but at the time I thought it was just me not thinking clearly. I didn't realize they were speaking a different language. Then I tried opening my eyes. That didn't help. I couldn't make anything out, because the light was so bright, and the wrong color on top of everything else."

Susan gave Kara a blank look. They had returned to the kitchen, both for a snack, and to let Susan digest what she had heard from Brainiac. Kara crossed to a control panel and moved a switch. The intensity of the light didn't change, but it shifted down the spectrum to a bright red.

"See what I mean?" Kara asked, gesturing at the room and its contents. Susan did see. She could make out details well enough, but not colors. Everything had a reddish tint. It was weird. Kara flipped the switch again, and the light returned to normal.

'Or at least normal for me,' Susan thought, watching her friend as Kara returned to her seat.

"Then a man bent over me," Kara went on. "I found out later that his name was Emil Hamilton, and that he was the head of STAR Labs' medical department, but at the time, he was just a stranger." Kara laced her fingers in an almost prayerful gesture. "On the other hand, he was the first new person I'd seen in a year or more, which could only be a good thing. It was only after looking at him for a moment that I realized he wasn't dressed right."

"Dressed right?" Susan repeated, her brow furrowing in puzzlement.

"He was wearing surgical scrubs," Kara explained, "But I didn't know what they were at the time. I was also not fully alert. I remember thinking that he might be a looter or something, but I was awake, and warm for the first time in long while, so I decided to wait before jumping to any conclusions." Kara inhaled deeply, then let the breath out slowly.

"He said something then, that I suppose was meant to be reassuring. Of course, I didn't understand a word of it. That was unsettling. Krypton and Argo only had six major dialects, and I was at least passing familiar with all of them. What Professor Hamilton said was unlike any language I'd ever heard, and that frightened me."

Susan offered Kara a wondering glance, and Kara smiled thinly.

"It was the implications, Susan. I wasn't consciously aware of them, but looking back they're plain enough: either a very long time had passed or, despite appearances, I was looking at some kind of alien creature, that intended Rao knew what."

"Or both," Susan added, and Kara smiled again, much more warmly. "Or both," she allowed, and Susan chuckled.

"It's odd to think of myself as an alien," she said, "But I suppose that all depends on your point of view."

"Anyway, as that sank in, I'm afraid I started to panic," Kara said quietly. "I sat up and demanded to know where my family was. Of course, Professor Hamilton couldn't understand me any better than I could him. He put his hand on my arm and tried to push me back down, all the while saying more stuff I couldn't understand. So I pushed back. Hard." Susan gulped.

"Did you...?"

Kara shook her head. "I didn't kill him, but only because I was lucky. He went flying across the room and hit the wall."

"Was he hurt?"

Kara nodded, her face red with embarrassment. "I broke most of his ribs, bruised his heart, and gave him a hairline spinal fracture." Susan winced in sympathy.

"That's when Clark spoke up," Kara continued. "He was dressed as Superman, of course. The other doctors in the room seemed to defer to him, and I guessed he was someone important. He said, 'You'll have to be careful, young lady. You're quite a bit stronger here.'" Kara looked at Susan. "He was speaking in Kryptonian, and as you may have gathered, I wasn't all that fond of them. But at least he was speaking a civilized language, so I asked the obvious question: 'Where is here?' 'A planet called Earth,' he said. The name word meant nothing to me, but from what I had seen of it so far, it was as primitive a place as I'd ever imagined." Kara said the last with an apologetic half smile, and Susan grinned.

"Perfectly understandable," she assured Kara.

"Then I looked around the room I was in. I guessed it was a hospital, but the equipment all looked like something out of an ancient history museum. There were other beds, but they were empty. I asked, 'Where is my family?'" Kara's eyes teared up. "The look on his face told me what had happened before he could speak," she sobbed. Susan rounded the table and put an arm around Kara's shoulders. Kara wept quietly for a few minutes, then dried her eyes and blew her nose.

"I asked him who he was, and he said 'Here they call me Superman, but on Krypton I was called Kal-el.'" There was a slight edge to Kara's voice as she said Clark's birth name.

"Was that good or bad?" Susan asked.

Kara gave Susan a sheepish glance. "The House of El had been one of the most prominent families during the time of the Science Council," she explained. "After the revolution, there were purges, as the common folk avenged themselves on their former overlords. Most of the old families were wiped out, but a few, like the El's, survived by going underground. When the fervor died down a decade or so later, they reemerged, and started working their way back to power and prominence."

"I take it they weren't terribly popular," Susan guessed. Kara shook her head. "Not really. Oh, there were exceptions, of course, but for the most part they were very traditional, clinging to the old ways, even flaunting them."

"What sort of 'old ways'?"

Kara made a face. "Keeping to themselves, only mating with members of other old families, continuing to engineer themselves genetically, and not reproducing the normal way."

Susan said nothing, only gestured for Kara to go on.

"Random combinations of egg and sperm weren't good enough for them. They'd take DNA samples, screen them for the genes they wanted, combine them to form an embryo, and put the whole thing in an artificial womb called a birthing matrix." Kara said the last like it left a bad taste in her mouth. "And they didn't always limit themselves to one man and one woman, either."

"What do you mean?"

"They'd take snippets of DNA from as many donors as they wanted to, and they didn't always feel the need to include both genders." Susan looked ill.

"So Clark is some kind of clone?"

Kara smiled. "That's his heritage, what he came from, yes. He's the ultimate product of millennia of deliberate genetic engineering and selective breeding. However," she said, holding up a hand, "Apparently his father Jor-el was part of the House of El's lunatic fringe. He and Clark's mother, Lara, actually combined one of her eggs with one of Jor-el's sperm. From what I've seen of the history Jor-el sent along with Clark, Lara wasn't keen on carrying the fetus herself, so they used a matrix, but apart from that Clark's conception was fairly normal."

"Clark looks so normal though!" Susan protested.

"He isn't though, even for a Kryptonian. Compared to the average Kryptonian male, Clark is faster, stronger, smarter, more resistant to illness, has a much longer potential life span, things like that."

"Wow!"

Kara grinned a slightly wicked grin. "It's not without its downsides, though."

"Like what?"

"Well, he's a lot more powerful than I am, even with age and gender taken into account, but he's also much more susceptible to some things. For example, expose him to red sunlight and his powers go away instantly. Mine take about a minute to fade completely. Kryptonite weakens him immediately, and can kill him in a few minutes. It hardly affects me at all. Clark is also much more vulnerable to magic than I am."

Susan shook her head in amazement. "You'll have to explain that later. Getting back to the story, though, after Clark told you his name, what happened?"

Kara's smile faded a bit. "Well, I had a hand on one of the bed rails. When he said his name my fingers clenched. I felt the rail crumple up. That weirded me out, because it was clearly made of metal, stainless steel. I tried again on a different section, and the same thing happened. I barely noticed when Professor Hamilton was taken away. Some other people came in. They seemed upset with me, but Clark said something in English, and they went away." Kara grinned again at the memory. "That led me to form a wrong conclusion. I still didn't know where I was, or what was going on, but I figured Clark was some kind of ruler, and that I'd better be polite, so I said, 'What is happening to me, My Lord?'"

Susan choked. "You called Clark 'My Lord'? Mild-mannered Boy Scout Clark Kent? Like he was a king or something?"

Kara blushed and shrugged. "Hey, he was an El, I didn't know when he'd left Krypton, and everybody seemed to defer to him, so..."

Susan didn't know whether to laugh or not. The idea of Clark as a king was so unlike the man she knew that it seemed ridiculous, but it also occurred to her that Clark could easily have made himself the King of Earth. Still could, if he wanted to. It was a disturbing thought, and Susan pushed it from her mind.

Kara either didn't notice Susan's discomfort, or just declined to mention it. Instead, she started talking again. "He seemed surprised by that too. He said 'I'm not a lord. Kal-el is the name my biological parents gave me, but they sent me away from Krypton just before it exploded. I was an infant when I was found and adopted by a human couple. I grew up being called by a human name, and that's how I think of myself.'" Kara threw Susan a quirky grin. "That surprised me, somehow. I guess I'd never expected an El to be modest about anything, especially his origins. I tried to remember the other name he mentioned. Naturally, I didn't get it right. It came out something like 'Zuffermon'. He just smiled. 'As for what's happening to you: Earth circles a yellow star. Somehow that yellow sunlight gives Kryptonians tremendous physical powers, like strength.' I didn't really hear what he said after 'yellow star'. I knew I wasn't on Argo, but to be in a completely different star system was a major shock. I guess I must have mumbled something about the yellow star, because Clark took my hand and said 'I'll show you.' He helped me up and led me to a window, then drew the shades back. It was a view of the Metropolis skyline with the ocean beyond, but what I remember most is the sunlight." Kara had a dreamy expression on her face as she remembered. "It was late morning, I think. Sol was high in the sky, shining directly into the window. I just stared at it. Its rays were coming through the glass, and it was _warm_. I hadn't been warm in such a long time I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven." Kara smiled again. "I totally forgot what Clark had said about being careful.. I laid my hands on the glass and pushed without thinking. That's when I found out Clark could fly."

Kara chuckled at Susan's bewildered look and explained. "The pane popped out in one piece and started falling toward the street. Clark dove out the window, caught it, and flew back up. As he was hovering outside he gave me a stern look and said 'Remember, you have to be careful.'"

Susan laughed out loud, as much at Kara's imitation of Clark's words and expression as the incident itself.

"Well," Susan said when she regained her breath, "That covers your first impression of Earth, I guess. Now how about telling me about how Kara In-ze became Kara Kent?"


	7. Interior, Fortress of Solitude, Night

Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.

"Becoming Kara Kent, huh? That's a bit of a long story. Let me see..." Kara leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling while she put her thoughts in order. Susan took the opportunity to study Kara. In her blue jeans and tee shirt, with her platinum blonde hair in a pony tail and wire-rimmed glasses perched on her nose, Kara looked like any other teenaged girl from south-central Kansas: ordinary. Perfectly ordinary.

That shouldn't have been the case, Susan decided. Leaving aside the incredible powers Earth's yellow sun granted her, Kara wasn't human. She was an alien, born and raised on another planet, one that circled a far distant star. Susan remembered something she'd read once, or perhaps heard, though she couldn't recall just where.

"You and I, and anyone else living today, have more in common with a peasant who lived in Mesopotamia five thousand years ago, than we would with anyone from another planet."

Susan frowned thoughtfully. Whoever had said that had been talking about the possibility of communication between intelligent races, if Susan recalled right. Something about the need for commonality of experiences. Apparently the originator of the idea had believed that life on any alien world would be so...alien...that it would be impossible for said aliens and humans to relate to one another, and thus make communication impossible as well.

Susan snorted. She wondered if he, whoever he was (and Susan conceded that it might not have been a man), had ever found out how wrong he was. The girl sitting across the table from her was proof of that. Even allowing that Kara had changed some of the details of her life story (ok, a lot of them), she had still lived a life that wasn't very different from Susan's: mother and father, sisters, friends, boys, dreams of a career and a family. A very familiar life path.

The oddest thing by far was just how much Kara looked like a human being. Taking communal showers after gym class meant putting everything on display, be it tattoos, piercings or stretch marks, what have you. Externally Kara was indistinguishable from a human being. She even menstruated, just like a human female, though her cycle was a bit longer. Not enough to raise any red flags, but enough for Kara to be asked about it. Her answer was to shrug and say she got it from her mother and that's just how it was. That seemed to have settled the matter, because Susan had never heard anyone mention it again. At least, Susan grimaced, no one in _her_ circle of friends mentioned it. Kara was liked by many at school, even if she wasn't part of the 'popular' crowd. The exception was a clique of girls that included Melanie Andrews, the now ex-girlfriend of a boy Kara had jumped in the sack with a few months after she arrived in town. Kara had seemed surprised when Melanie took exception. The resulting confrontation had been loud and ugly, though to be honest, Melanie had done almost all the name-calling. The principal had broken up the incipient fight and made them apologize, but neither girl had really meant it. Kara and Melanie had been enemies ever since, though again, Melanie did most of the grudge carrying.. Her little group was an odd mix of jealous girlfriends, bitter ex-girlfriends, and outraged moralists. Susan herself tended toward the latter. If there was one thing about Kara that Susan unambiguously disapproved of, it was Kara's promiscuity. Of course, knowing (now) that Kara couldn't catch or transmit STD's, let alone get pregnant, put the matter in a somewhat different light, as did knowing Kara's true life story. Having literally lost everything, it wasn't so surprising that Kara would have a 'live life to the fullest' attitude.

Susan grinned. Part of her disapproval came from simple jealousy. She liked sex as much as anyone, and if she didn't have to worry about getting sick or pregnant, she might be a bit more willing to screw any boy who asked her, too.

She must have laughed, because Kara looked at her and asked, "What?"

"Nothing," Susan said, shaking her head. "I was just thinking about you not being human, and how that explains a couple of things that happened when you first came to town."

Kara made a face. "You aren't going to bring up the hedge apple thing again, are you?" Susan laughed out loud then. She laughed until tears came to her eyes. Kara scowled at her, but Susan kept right on laughing until she was red in the face. After she and Kara had become friends, Susan had taken Kara to the farmers market one day. While walking among the displays Kara had picked up a hedge apple. She'd sniffed it, paid for it, then tore it open and started eating it, much to the consternation of both Susan and the man who'd sold it to her.

"How was I supposed to know?" Kara demanded when Susan finally stopped. "It smelled fantastic," she added defensively. Then, with a self-deprecating grin, "Tasted good, too." That sent Susan right off again.

Kara waited patiently until Susan composed herself, then said, "That brings up a good point though." When Susan offered her a puzzled look Kara explained.

"Think of all the stuff you know about life on Earth, the things you know without even realizing it. Like, for example," Kara said, giving Susan a meaningful look, "That hedge apples aren't 'people food'. Or how to tell time, what the names of days of the week are, what the names of the months are. That 'autumn' and 'fall' mean the same thing, all the subtleties of the English language that most native speakers never think about. You know how you sometimes accuse me of being too 'formal' when I talk?" Susan nodded.

"That's because, even after two years of intense study, I still don't know as much about English as you do." Kara paused briefly. "You also remember how I pay closer attention to people when they talk than most folks do? That's because I don't always understand what they mean when they use an expression, and I'm trying to figure it out."

"Why don't you just ask someone?" Susan asked, and Kara smiled humorlessly. "I used to, but after hearing 'Don't people use that expression in Boston' for the hundredth time, I kind of gave up asking anyone but Clark, or Jonathan and Martha."

Susan winced. She'd been among those who'd looked askance at Kara when she asked about things. Not as bad as some, but Susan had had her moments. A memory sprang to mind of the time Kara asked what 'It'll be a cold day in Hell' meant. At the time, Susan had been dumbfounded, but now, looking back it made perfect sense that Kara might not have known that Hell was supposed to be hot all the time.

"Well, at least asking me won't be a problem from now on," Susan said by way of apology, and Kara gave her a smile. "It'll be nice to have a close girl friend again," Kara admitted. "I haven't had one of those since Pala died."

Susan felt her eyes sting with tears. In objective terms Pala Nan-ad had been dead for over forty years. From Kara's point of view it was only six years, but that was still a third of Kara's life. A long time to be without a best friend your own age. Someone you could confide in, share secrets with. Kara could probably talk to Martha Kent about boys, for example, but only in a general way. Talking about sex would be out of the question, along with gossiping about who was seeing who, or who was sleeping with who, or any of the other things parents disapproved of, or teenagers just didn't feel comfortable talking to adults about.

Susan stood up, rounded the table and put her hands on Kara's shoulders.

"It'll be my pleasure," she said with a warm smile.

Kara's own eyes had gone misty.

"Thank you," she replied. Susan drew Kara into an embrace that she eagerly returned.

A certain amount of sniffling and tears later the two drew apart. They started giggling almost at once, even more so as they blew their noses and wiped their eyes.

When she had composed herself Susan gave Kara a mock stern look. "Enough mush. On with your story, In-ze!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Kara shot back with a grin, tossing off a salute. "Well, like I said, that's a long story." Kara frowned suddenly. "No," she corrected, "Not so much 'long' as 'complicated'." She began ticking items off on her fingers. "I had to learn to speak, read and write English; I had to learn to control my powers; and I had to learn about this strange new world I found myself in, about which, of course, I knew absolutely nothing." Susan nodded silently. It was a daunting task by any stretch of the imagination.

"At first, Clark was going to have me stay at STAR Labs, which I didn't care for at all. He didn't like the idea much either, so then he though about bringing me here." Kara gestured around herself, "But he liked that idea even less. Finally he decided to just take me to his apartment."

"And how did he explain to the STAR people that Superman had to leave, but that Clark Kent would be right back to pick you up?"

Kara grinned. "He didn't. Once the doctors had given me a clean bill of health we went up on the roof, Clark scooped me up in his arms and we flew away."

"You didn't fly yourself?" Susan probed. Kara shook her head. "It took me a while to master that, and we didn't have time right then. Anyway, we took a quick turn around the city while Clark told me a little about it, and then we went to his apartment."

"In broad daylight?"

"Yeah. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but at super speed almost no-one can see him. On top of that there's a hologram projector on the roof that sends a picture of empty sky up a mile or so that he can descend through. That hides him even at low speeds, so, ya know," Kara shrugged. "What surprised me was how small it was. The apartment, I mean. I guess I expected something a little more grandiose, something more in keeping with how I assumed an El would behave.

"Anyway, once we were inside Clark went into another room and changed clothes. I have to say that when he came out again I didn't recognize him at first. 'Who are you?' I asked. 'It's me, Kara,' he answered. He was wearing slacks and a polo shirt, and had his hair arranged differently, but what really threw me were the glasses. 'What are those things on your face?' He took them off and looked at them, then gave me a puzzled look. 'These? These are glasses.' When I didn't say anything he went on, 'I don't actually need them, I just wear them to alter my appearance, but most people use them to correct their vision.'"

Susan studied the peculiar look on Kara's face and said, "Let me guess. You didn't have glasses on Argo."

"Nobody _needed_ them," Kara explained. "If your vision started to go bad, you went to a doctor and had your eyes fixed. The idea of wearing lenses to compensate was just..."

"Primitive?" Susan interrupted, a slight edge to her voice.

Kara blushed slightly. "I'm going to stop using that word, but yeah, that's it." She removed her own glasses, polished the lenses and put them back on.

"Clark had some books with him, and he took me into the living room, sat me down and said, 'Now Kara, what I'm about to tell you is a secret. You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone without my permission, okay?' I didn't understand, but I promised anyway. Then he said, 'Superman isn't my real name any more than Kal-el is. My real name is Clark Kent.' He opened up one of the books then. It was a cross between a scrapbook and a photo album. The first picture he showed me was of a little boy with a man and a woman."

"Jonathan and Martha?"

"Naturally," Kara said, smiling fondly. "'Those are my parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, farmers from Smallville, Kansas.' Then he got a globe and an atlas and showed me where Kansas was, where Smallville was, and where we were at the moment. He flipped through the pages and showed me pictures of him working around the farm, helping Jonathan. I was shocked, and it must have showed because he said, 'What's the matter?' I said, 'You lived on a farm? You did manual labor?' He answered, 'Well, yeah, you have to sometimes. Why does that surprise you?' I gave him an imploring look. 'Don't take this the wrong way, but no El I ever heard of would stoop to manual labor. I just can't believe it.'" Kara gave Susan a meaningful look. "I expected a reaction, just not the one I got."

"What happened?" Susan invited curiously.

"Clark got this eager look on his face and exclaimed, 'You knew my family!'" Kara's own face went downcast. "I guess the idea of meeting someone who had known his biological parents was a secret dream of Clark's. 'No,' I told him. 'I knew of the House of El. Pretty much everyone on Krypton and Argo did.' Clark didn't give up hope even then. 'Did you know about my father, Jor-el?' 'I don't think so. What did he do?' 'He was a scientist.' 'What field?' 'Hyperphysics.' 'No, I'm sorry. My father might have heard of him, but if he did he never mentioned him.' Clark's face fell. We sat there in silence for a while. Then he said, 'Kara, what did you mean when you said no El you'd ever heard of would stoop to manual labor?'"

Kara made a face, and Susan winced. "Talk about your awkward moments," she said sympathetically.

"Yeah," Kara agreed. "I mean, there I was, casting aspersions on the family of my host, the man who had saved my life."

"What did you do?" Susan asked.

"I told him the truth," Kara said simply. "Well, sort of."

"How do you 'sort of' tell the truth?" Susan wondered, leaning forward and resting her chin on her fist.

"By discreet editing," Kara grinned. "I said, 'Kal, er, _Clark_,' and by the way, it was at that moment that I made up my mind to think of him as _Clark Kent _instead of _Kal-el_, 'Clark, you have to understand that Krypton and Argo didn't always get along. The House of El had a prominent role in Kryptonian society for thousands of years, and were at the center of most of the issues that divided our worlds.'"

"That was pretty diplomatic," Susan opined.

"I told him the whole truth later, of course, but at the time I said my opinion of his birth family was just that, my opinion, and colored by the culture I grew up in. He accepted that, along with my saying that he hadn't acted like I'd assumed he would."

"That's Clark for you," Susan agreed.

"Anyway, we spent a couple of hours looking at the books while Clark told me about growing up on Earth, thinking that he was a normal human being, about how surprised he was when his powers started to show themselves, and how freaked out he was when he found out he wasn't human. He explained the whole concept of his secret identity, and why it was important to him. It was all very un-El-like, so of course, I approved," Kara said, deliberately self-righteous.

Susan laughed. "What happened then?"

"Quite a few things. Clark started teaching me English, and borrowed a cutting edge teaching machine from STAR to help with that. When we weren't working on that he taught me to control my powers."

"How long did that take?"

"It took me a month to get fluent, and to learn to read and write," Kara said. Susan blinked in astonishment.

"A month?" she exclaimed.

"That's what working at it sixteen hours a day, seven days a week will do," Kara shrugged. "I actually spent far more time working on my English than I did on the powers. That was mostly limited to being careful about my strength. And of course, the teaching machine really sped things along."

"I suppose so," Susan said absently. Her eyes narrowed. "What about clothes? I can't quite see Clark walking into a department store, going to the Misses section and picking out outfits for you." Susan giggled wickedly. "Let alone your 'unmentionables'."

Kara giggled too. "You're right. Clark got someone else to take care of that."

"Lois?"

Kara shook her head. "No, Lois wasn't 'in the know' at the time."

"Who was it then?"

"Batgirl."

"Batgirl?"

Kara nodded. "Clark flew down to Gotham that first night and brought her to Metropolis. After Clark introduced us, Batgirl sized me up, Clark gave her some money, and she went shopping."

"As Batgirl?" Susan asked incredulously.

"No, she went in her civilian identity," Kara scoffed. Susan gave her an expectant look, but Kara turned away. "Not my secret to share, Susan."

Susan sighed. "I know. I shouldn't even have asked."

"That's all right. At the time I didn't know this person was Batgirl. Clark just introduced her as...well...he just told me her nickname, and that she was a friend. I'll leave it at that."

"So you got some clothes, learned English, and learned to not wreck stuff. What prompted the move to Smallville?" Susan asked.

"Clark is always busy, both with his reporting and with being Superman. He barely had enough free time to pursue Lois, without me taking even more of his time. He didn't see it that way, but I did. Then there was the matter of me having to hide every time one of his friends came over, and him not being able to devote as much time as he wanted to teaching me about Earth and stuff like that. So one day he asked if I would mind moving in with his parents. I hadn't met them yet, but they seemed like nice people, and I could see the logic behind it, so I said sure. Passing me off as a Kent seemed like an obvious choice. Giving me a past was trickier. We had to make it plausible enough that most people wouldn't question it, and then plant enough information in enough places that anyone who did look into my past would find evidence of my existence, while at the same time leaving it vague enough that someone who actually went to Boston would have a hard time pinpointing me, as it were."

"Sounds tricky," Susan offered.

"It was," Kara confirmed. "But Batman...he's the one who did the faking and the planting...was really thorough. For example, I was home schooled, so there are no classmates to ask about me. My mother ran a charity clinic for the homeless out of a building that no longer exists, and only took donations in cash. All of the clinics records were destroyed when the building, which we also lived in, burned down, which is also when she died."

"But what about her life story? And your Dad and sisters? You said they died in a car crash years ago. Wouldn't that be in the paper?"

"It isn't perfect," Kara admitted with a shrug. "If time travel was easier and less dangerous, maybe, but since it isn't..."

"But there are some records, right?"

"Oh yeah. Like the car accident. There's a police report filed by a now dead officer. There are death certificates and autopsy reports. Somewhere there's even a receipt for having them cremated. Batman did as much as he could, and tried to cover every possible question that an investigator might ask, but he's only human. It isn't perfect, and I'm sure that someone who really tried would figure out that Kara Kent didn't exist until two years ago."

"What would you do if that happened?" Susan asked softly.

"Well, I don't except it to. I'd have to give someone a reason to look into my background first, and I have no plans to do that." At Susan's puzzled look Kara explained. "I'm going into the technology business, but I'm going to avoid seeking personal publicity, and I'm not going to get involved in controversial matters if I can avoid it."

"So politics is out?" Susan teased.

"Way out," Kara grinned back. "Supergirl will be the one with the high profile, and since Supergirl and Kara Kent have nothing to do with each other..."

"Oh really?" Susan asked, quirking an eyebrow at her friend.

"Of course not," Kara said innocently. "After all, Supergirl hangs out in Metropolis, not Smallville."

"That's true," Susan allowed. "But speaking of Smallville, why don't you tell me about your first impression of our little town?"


	8. Lunch and a Mad Scientist

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_Triaxx2, Averroes: Thanks for your reviews_

"First impressions of Smallville, huh?" Kara asked, leaning back in her chair. "Well, let's see. Argo-" Kara was cut off by ring tone of her cell phone, which also doubled as her Justice League communicator.

Susan watched expectantly as Kara opened it and looked at the screen. Kara punched a button with her thumb and placed the phone to her ear.

"Hi, Aunt Martha," Kara said, winking at Susan. "What's going on?" There was a pause while Kara listened, then she said, "Ok, we'll be back soon," and hung up.

"Something come up?" Susan asked curiously. Kara grinned. "In a manner of speaking," she said mysteriously, then laughed at Susan's expression. "Pete just called. He said it's lunch time and your folks are wondering what's keeping us."

Susan glanced down at her watch. After her folks had arrived at the Kent home, Susan had had to talk her mother out of dragging her home. "It was only a seizure, Mom," Susan had said. "I've had them before. I'll be fine now that I have my pills." By consent amongst Pete, Clark, Kara and Susan, Mr. and Mrs. Ross weren't told about the attempt on Susan's life. That would wait until later, if in fact, they were ever told at all. Nor were they told that the Justice League was getting involved. That had seemed a little unfair to Susan, but she had to agree with Pete when he pointed out that the more people who knew a secret, the less likely it was to _stay_ a secret. So Susan and Pete, between them, had calmed their mother down and gotten her and their father to go home, but not before extracting a promise that Kara would come over for lunch at noon.

"Yowtch!" Susan exclaimed. "I didn't realize we'd been gone that long!" She stood up. "I guess I'd better get dressed."

Kara smiled and shook her head. "Much as I love flying," she confessed, "what do you say we take the express route back?"

Susan gave her friend a questioning look, then her eyes widened. "The teleporter?" she asked excitedly. Kara just nodded.

* * *

The teleporter deposited them behind the big hay barn that dominated the Kent farmstead. Susan noted that the spot was sheltered on all sides from prying eyes.

"Convenient," she commented. "Is that why things are laid out the way they are?" she went on, gesturing at the surrounding structures.

Kara shook her head. "Not really," she explained. "This is where Clark and I come and go from, and he initially chose it because it's sheltered, but it was like that before he even came to Earth. The fact that it's handy for the teleporter too is just a happy accident."

Susan nodded thoughtfully. "I suppose you don't even really need the teleporter," she mused.

"You're right about that," Kara agreed as the two headed around the barn. "I can get to the Watchtower on my own pretty quickly, and I do love to fly, so..." Kara trailed off as the Kent farmhouse came in view. Jonathan, Clark and Pete were sitting on the front porch drinking iced tea and talking amongst themselves.

"Typical male behavior," Susan observed dryly, "Loafing while poor Martha slaves over a hot stove."

Kara chuckled. "You've obviously never eaten Uncle Jonathan's cooking," she said.

Susan blinked, then frowned thoughtfully. "Now that you mention it, I don't think I have. Bad?"

"Well, let's just say that if he was a cook in a restaurant, you could eat the food, but you wouldn't hurry back," Kara said diplomatically. She waved to the group on the porch. "Hey guys," she called to Clark and Pete. "Uncle Jonathan, Susan and I are going to head for her place for lunch now. I'll be back this afternoon." To Susan she said, "I just have to get my purse. I'll only be a minute." Then she disappeared through the front door.

Susan settled on the porch rail and looked at the trio before her.

"Did you and Kara have a good time?" Clark asked solicitously.

"Yes we did, Clark," Susan said levelly. "I have to say I learned a lot," she added with a slight catch in her voice.

Pete studied his sister's expression, then turned to Clark and said, "She can't decide whether to be angry with us or excited."

Susan stamped her foot on the porch. "Peter Ross, don't you go spoiling my fun," she said sharply, wagging a finger at him, unable to hold off the smile that spread across her face. "It was amazing! The whole thing!"

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," Clark said with a smile. "Just let me know if you ever want to go back." He gave Susan a frank look. "Of course, you'll be discreet about all of this?"

Susan feigned zipping her mouth shut, locking it and throwing the key away.

"My lips are sealed," she promised solemnly.

"I hope not," Kara said as she reemerged from the house, "Otherwise you'll have a hard time eating."

* * *

"More meatloaf, Kara, before I put it away?" Susan's mother asked.

Kara eyed her mostly empty plate, then the platter Mrs. Ross had in her hands. She was about to take it back to the kitchen and put the remaining meatloaf in the refrigerator.

"Very tempting," Kara said after a short period of contemplation, "But I'd better not. Have to watch my figure you know."

Mrs. Ross nodded understandingly, and Kara smiled. Susan's mother was old enough, at fifty-nine years of age, to have seen the beginning of the feminist movement, but it hadn't had the same impact in rural areas as it had in the big cities. As a consequence her attitudes tended to be a little 'old fashioned'. But only as regarded herself. She had done nothing to stop her daughters from following their own paths in life, indeed had encouraged them. So her eldest daughter had become a doctor, another a pilot for a major airline and yet another was working her way up the corporate ladder at the largest bank in Wichita. Sharon Ross, though, was content with the life of a homemaker. Not, of course, that bearing and raising ten children hadn't been a lot of work, Kara had to admit. Her own parents had been sorely tried by just four children, a large family by Argoan standards.

Given Mrs. Ross' perspective it wasn't surprising she'd support a girl's worries about her figure, instead of chiding them for being too body conscious. But she meant well.

Susan's father pushed back his chair and began clearing the table.

"Go help your mother with the dishes, Susan," he said as he gathered up plates and silverware.

"I'll help too," Kara offered, following Susan to the kitchen. The girls set to work while Susan's mother went elsewhere. Kara couldn't help but smile. She'd learned the very first time she'd eaten at the Ross' that when Susan's father said, "Help your mother with the dishes, Susan," he really meant, "You do the dishes, Susan." It was the way the Ross' did things. Mr. Ross set and cleared the table, Mrs. Ross cooked, and Susan cleaned up after, just as her older brothers and sisters had done before her.

"At least I only have to wash dishes for four people," Susan had said more than once. Her oldest siblings had cleaned up after as many as twelve, and that was when it was just the family.

"I'll wash, you dry?" Kara suggested.

"Works for me," Susan said, taking a dish towel out of a drawer. Kara started filling the sink with soap and water, then donned the pair of elbow length rubber gloves Susan's mother kept under the sink.

Susan gave Kara a peculiar look. Kara quirked an eyebrow at Susan.

"I don't want to get dishpan hands," Kara explained, acting as if she was shocked it wasn't obvious.

Susan burst out laughing, and Kara chuckled.

"Oh, that's funny," Susan said when she calmed down. After a moment, though, Susan's expression went serious. She glanced around, then whispered, "Why do you do it? I mean, you could probably stick your hand into molten lava without getting burned, so a little warm water shouldn't be any problem."

"For the same reason I wear glasses, use sunscreen, and pretend I'm no stronger than a normal person. I want to fit in, and I don't want people bugging me twenty-four seven for help."

Susan looked shocked, and Kara clarified. "I mean, I like helping people, but can you imagine what it would be like if everyone knew?" Kara affected a mockingly demanding tone. "Kara, would you use your heat vision to melt the snow off my driveway? Kara, my car is stuck in the mud. Would you lift it out for me?" Kara let her voice go normal again. "That sort of thing."

"I see your point," Susan agreed. Kara picked up a plate from the pile beside the sink and started scrubbing.

* * *

While Susan and Kara washed the dishes, chatted, and made plans for the evening, in another part of Smallville a man was contemplating the vagaries of fate. He had set out to do a simple thing: kill Susan Ross. And he had failed. Perhaps it was because his plan was too elaborate. A distinct possibility. Needless complexity was a flaw of many of his schemes, a flaw he worked hard to control, but which he never succeeded in suppressing entirely.

He had studied his target carefully, learning her habits and routines. Ambushing her on her Saturday morning run, when she would be all but alone, had seemed like an obvious thing to do: it reduced the number of potential witnesses (and survivors) considerably. Using the prototype combat hovercraft he'd designed seemed logical, since it had both the speed and mobility to run down anyone on foot, almost no matter where they tried to find safety. Automating it and programming it to track it's target via a passive homing device had appeared to be no-brainer. Getting the target to carry said homing device at all times had been tricky, but means and opportunity had presented themselves and been taken advantage of. It seemed that he had left nothing to chance. But he obviously had. He'd overlooked some variable, and it had bitten him in the ass. Not only had Susan Ross survived her rendezvous with Death, the hovercraft had been totaled, and hauled off by parties as yet unknown.

Probably, whoever had the hovercraft now wouldn't be able to trace it to him. It had been impossible to avoid leaving evidence behind when he'd had it constructed (his employees didn't know the true purpose of the machine they'd been fabricating and had left fingerprints all over it, inside and out) but he'd disassembled the machine and cleaned every component before reassembling it himself.

He returned his attention to the monitor of his computer. He was analyzing the telemetry from the hovercraft, trying to figure out exactly what had happened. He sighed. If only he'd mounted a TV camera on the front of the damn thing. Oh well. A lesson learned for next time. He frowned at the screen. If he was interpreting the accelerometer data correctly, the hovercraft had struck what amounted to an immovable object just before it reached its target. What sort of object wasn't clear. The hovercraft's radar hadn't seen anything that the onboard computers considered an obstacle, so what had it hit? He resolved to head up to Marlow Ridge and see what he could find out. Whatever had happened, young Miss Ross and her friend hadn't reported anything to the police. That was interesting, and bore looking into.

The man stood up, stretched, and decided to grab some lunch while the computer did its work. He stepped out of the room he'd been sitting in, into an adjoining room that was similarly furnished. A woman sitting behind a cluttered desk looked up at him and smiled.

"Going to lunch, Mr. Healey?"

Trevor Healey smiled back. "That's right, Joyce. I should be back in an hour or so."

While his secretary adjusted the chart she kept of who was where, Healey left the workshop/lab he owned and headed for his car. He would solve this latest problem and try again. Susan Ross would die, and Trevor Healey's first step toward avenging himself on Donald Ross would be complete.


End file.
